Zamrock
The 6 Best Zamrock
Tracks of All Time
Zambia in the seventies, a few years after independence and briefly rich on copper: heavy psychedelic rock played on cheap equipment, sung in English and Bemba, with a broadcasting quota that required Zambian records on the radio.
- Origin
- Lusaka and Kitwe, Zambia, 1972
- Tempo
- 100–150 BPM
- Also known as
- zambian rock, zam rock
- Tracks
- 6
- Updated
- 2026-08-31
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Number 1: WITCH / Introduction
1975
From Lazy Bones, and the best-known Zamrock record by some distance. Emanuel Chanda's voice is playful over a band playing considerably harder than he is.
Number 2: Amanaz / Khala My Friend
1975
From the only album they made. A guitar figure of real melancholy, and a lyric about a friend who has died, recorded in Kitwe on the copper belt.
Number 3: Ngozi Family / Nizakupanga Ngozi
1976
Paul Ngozi, the scene's most prolific figure, threatening the listener over a riff that does not let up. The heaviest thing Zambia produced.
Also on 1976
Number 6: Ngozi Family / Day of Judgement
1976
Apocalyptic, distorted and recorded at what sounds like the edge of the tape. The scene collapsed shortly after, as copper prices fell and AIDS arrived.